Four Ways To Use Bands With Your Deadlifts

As a fitness instructor, I often work with power athletes and bodybuilders, and one of the workouts we do a lot of is deadlifting. It engages so many muscles and when done right, can really add some intensity to a training session.

One underused gear when it comes to this is exercise bands, but I love adding them to show how much of an impact they have on high-intensity days.

Bands should be used at certain times for your deadlifts, for specific purposes. There are a variety of ways to use them, but it’s important that you know what you’re doing to ensure that you get the most out of your workout and efforts.

How to Do These Deadlifts

If you’re looking for ways to improve your skill, you’ve come to the right place. Deadlifts are already highly beneficial for muscle toning and strengthening, but when you use bands, you’re bound to define your body even sooner. The following four ways to use bands can help you get better results from your deadlifting. Take a look:

The Normal Band Deadlift – This is the most common way to use bands in deadlifting. This type of banded deadlift will allow you to get resistance as you get closer and closer to lockout. The way that this type of deadlift allows you to lift more easily than you would otherwise while maintaining heavyweight, helps you to add a bit more challenge and tension to your lifting.

In this lift, you’ll wrap the bands around the bottom of the power rack equipment and hook them on each side of your bar, so you’ll be getting resistance from below. Thin bands are useful for this type of deadlift. Be careful though, as you are increasing weight and pull from below, you’ll need to be extra cautious that it doesn’t snap.

The Reverse Banded Deadlift – This type of deadlift move is helpful when you want a little assistance in your lifting. Because of the position of the bands hanging from the top of the power rack and wrapped around your bar, it helps to provide you with just enough tension to aid you in getting the deadlift started but won’t take away from the lockout effect.

In fact, the extra “help” you get from the reverse band deadlift can mean that you’re able to lift heavy weight for even more repetitions. As you squat down and lift up, as you would in a regular deadlift, you’ll barely notice the band, except when for when you have the bar up closer to you. Thick bands are best for this type of band deadlift.

Front Banded Deadlift – For this move, you’ll wrap thin bands around the equipment and onto both sides of your weight bar, so that you are a few feet away from the machine.

You will lift your bar naturally as you do without a band, but thanks to the added tension of the band, it will help you to lift the bar closer to your body and not so far forward. A common mistake that many weightlifters do is lift the bar away from their body. You may need to use rack pins for added security. This technique is helpful for getting your lats engaged.

Deadlift With Solo Band – Convenient for when you don’t have weights with you, like on a trip or lunch break, and you want to do some workout, this type of deadlift doesn’t demand you to use a dumbbell. You can simply use a solo band to get the results that you’re looking for.

Using a thick band, stand in a sumo stance. Pull it over your head, loosen it up a bit, and step on top of the bottom of it. Make sure that there’s some slack in the band. Widen your stance, squat down to grab the middle and pull it up, much like the position that you would use in a typical deadlift move. Repeat the process. It’s also helpful for getting the kinks out of your body after a long flight and helping you to stretch.

Conclusion

Bands are used for a variety of exercises, from weightlifting to cardio and body strengthening. They are beneficial in helping you to use your body strength more for increased results. It does take time to get used to using them. The above tips should help to get you started on this unique type of weightlifting that is bound to provide you with the amazing results that you’ve been hoping for.

And my bonus safety tip: always make sure you have proper deadlift shoes, and not just regular runners. Injury prevention is always a top priority.